Against the Current: Essays in the History of IdeasBerlin's main theme in these essays is the importance in the history of ideas of dissenters whose thinking still challenges conventional wisdom - among them Machiavelli, Vico, Montesquieu, Herzen and Sorel. With his unusual powers of imaginative re-creation, he brings to life original minds that swam against the current of their times, and in the process offers a powerful defence of variety in our visions of life. |
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... radical differences, proceeded on one central unargued assumption: that reality, whatever mere appearances may indicate to the contrary, is in essence a rational whole where all things ultimately cohere. They suppose that there exists ...
... radical differences, proceeded on one central unargued assumption: that reality, whatever mere appearances may indicate to the contrary, is in essence a rational whole where all things ultimately cohere. They suppose that there exists ...
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... radical break with it, they are above all the expression of the deep and unsilenceable misgivings of a sympathetic insider, of someone who has fully grasped – perhaps too fully – the aims and methods of the intellectual movement he ...
... radical break with it, they are above all the expression of the deep and unsilenceable misgivings of a sympathetic insider, of someone who has fully grasped – perhaps too fully – the aims and methods of the intellectual movement he ...
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... radical innovations, the insidious enemies were the more fanatical and dogmatic philosophes of the French Enlightenment, whose central doctrines were held to be devitalising distortions of the truth, masking more than they illuminated ...
... radical innovations, the insidious enemies were the more fanatical and dogmatic philosophes of the French Enlightenment, whose central doctrines were held to be devitalising distortions of the truth, masking more than they illuminated ...
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... radical antinomian thinker in this volume, J. G. Hamann. As a young man Hamann, a protégé of the leading figures of the Berlin Aufkl rung, Mendelssohn and Nicolai, had been a successful publicist and apostle of enlightenment. But after ...
... radical antinomian thinker in this volume, J. G. Hamann. As a young man Hamann, a protégé of the leading figures of the Berlin Aufkl rung, Mendelssohn and Nicolai, had been a successful publicist and apostle of enlightenment. But after ...
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... radical unrest experienced the world over during the past decade. Indeed, surveying the modern world, Berlin detects at the heart of the most disparate movements, from the nationalist tide in the Third World to the radical unrest among ...
... radical unrest experienced the world over during the past decade. Indeed, surveying the modern world, Berlin detects at the heart of the most disparate movements, from the nationalist tide in the Third World to the radical unrest among ...
Contents
The Originality of Machiavelli | |
The Divorce between the Sciences and the Humanities | |
Vicos Concept of Knowledge | |
Montesquieu | |
Hume and the Sources of German AntiRationalism | |
Herzen and his Memoirs | |
The Life and Opinions of Moses Hess | |
Benjamin Disraeli Karl Marx and the Search for Identity | |
The Naïveté of Verdi | |
Past Neglect and Present Power | |
Authors Note | |
Index | |
Other editions - View all
Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas - Second Edition Isaiah Berlin Limited preview - 2013 |
Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas - Second Edition Isaiah Berlin Limited preview - 2013 |
Common terms and phrases
Aileen Kelly Alexander Herzen believed Benjamin Disraeli Berlin central century Christian civilisation common conceived conception consciousness created culture Descartes Disraeli doctrine E. H. Carr empirical ends Enlightenment essays fact faith French Georges Sorel German Giambattista Vico Hamann Hegel Henry Hardy Herder Herzen Hess history of ideas human Hume Hume’s ibid ideal imagination individual intellectual Isaiah Berlin Italian Jewish Jews justice Kant Karl Marx knowledge language laws letter liberal lives London Machiavelli man’s mankind Marx Marx’s Marxist men’s metaphysical methods modern Montesquieu moral Moses Hess myth natural sciences Niccolò Machiavelli one’s organisation original outlook Oxford passionate perhaps philosophical political Prince principles radical rationalist realise reality reason religion repr Review revolution revolutionary Roman Russian scepticism scientific seems sense social socialist society Sorel Spinoza spirit theory thinkers thought tradition trans true truth understand universal values Verdi Vico Vico’s vision Voltaire writings